Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) has entered a defining moment in its tourism trajectory. As Vietnam’s largest metropolis and a fast-rising regional hub, the city has set ambitious goals for 2025 — welcoming 10 million international visitors and expanding its tourism economy through diversified products, new spatial development, and an increasingly global brand. To reach these goals, understanding how travelers perceive HCMC has become just as important as how many actually arrive.

The HCMC Global Traveler Barometer (HCMC GTB) represents a major advancement in this effort. Developed by the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center in partnership with The Outbox Company, the HCMC GTB provides a standardized, twice-yearly assessment of traveler intention, behavior, and perception regarding HCMC across 13 key international markets.

This article focuses on one of the most important components of the study: how international markets perceive Ho Chi Minh City as a destination. The insights below highlight areas of strong brand presence, differences across markets and opportunities for more targeted branding and marketing strategies.

The HCMC Global Traveler Barometer shows clear differences in how Ho Chi Minh City is recognized and considered across international markets. Southeast Asia and Australia record the highest awareness levels, both averaging 3.5 on a five-point scale, followed by South Korea at 3.2. In these markets, Ho Chi Minh City consistently appears among the better-known urban destinations in the region, alongside Singapore, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur.

In markets where awareness is strongest, consideration levels are also relatively high. Southeast Asia records the highest consideration score at 3.3, with Australia at 3.0, indicating that familiarity with the destination is reflected in early-stage travel evaluation. These markets continue to represent a stable base where Ho Chi Minh City is not only known, but regularly included in destination shortlists.

In contrast, Japan, China, North America, and Western Europe show lower and less consistent levels of recognition. In these markets, major Asian cities such as Singapore and Bangkok continue to dominate top-of-mind awareness, reflecting differences in long-term exposure and brand visibility across these markets.

According to the study, travelers’ perceptions of the city’s three main tourism pillars — cuisine, landscape, and experiences — are generally aligned, with average familiarity levels ranging from 2.9 to 3.0 on a five-point scale. This consistency indicates that international audiences have a stable baseline understanding of what HCMC offers, even if the depth of that understanding varies across markets.

Among the three pillars, landscape demonstrates slightly stronger familiarity overall. Even in long-haul regions such as North America and Western Europe, respondents report a clearer sense of the city’s urban character compared with other attributes. However, a notable proportion of travelers still express neutrality or uncertainty regarding HCMC’s landscape, indicating that the city’s visual and spatial identity has yet to crystallize into a clearly defined global image. This gap presents an opportunity to articulate a more compelling and coherent urban narrative in future campaigns.

Meanwhile, the tourism experience pillar shows more variation across markets. Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Australia report higher familiarity, with over 40 percent of travelers in these regions recognizing or understanding the types of experiences available in HCMC. In contrast, Western Europe and North America show higher levels of limited familiarity, reflecting a need for more visibility at the experiential level — from nightlife and cultural activities to riverfront attractions and guided city exploration.

Findings from the HCMC Global Traveler Barometer 2025 establish a strong and positive international perception of Ho Chi Minh City. The city is widely recognized not for single iconic landmarks, but as an interesting, culturally rich urban destination defined by its diverse, experiential attributes.

Travelers across markets consistently describe HCMC using positive, experience-led terms such as outstanding culture, unique experiences, beautiful scenery, and friendly people. This recurring sentiment confirms that HCMC’s image is rooted in its authentic atmosphere, rich human interaction, and the energy of its everyday urban life. Furthermore, attributes like safety, favorable weather, and cleanliness reinforce a sense of accessibility, broadening the city’s appeal across diverse traveler segments.

Overall, the city’s destination image is robust, anchored by positive sentiment and strong experiential appeal. Future communication efforts should capitalize on this existing equity by refining and organizing these established, positive associations. This optimization will ensure the city’s distinctive identity is clearly and consistently articulated to the global audience.

The HCMC Global Traveler Barometer illustrates how destination brand image can be tracked in a structured and comparable way across international markets. By monitoring awareness, consideration, and the associations travelers use to describe Ho Chi Minh City, this solution gives tourism stakeholders a clearer view of how the city is positioned today and how its perception shifts over time, supporting more precise branding, messaging, and market prioritization decisions.

For destinations looking to better understand how this solution can support your destination’s tourism strategy, contact us to learn more.

The first wave of the Ho Chi Minh City Global Traveler Barometer (HCMC GTB 2025) delivers fresh, data-driven insights into international travel demand, visitor behavior and destination perception. This free infographic provides a high-level overview of what the data reveals — from global travel sentiment to Ho Chi Minh City’s positioning among top destinations.

• Travel demand and sentiment: Patterns of travel demand and readiness to travel from major international markets
• Changing behavior: how travelers choose destinations, travel style, accommodation preferences and trip duration
• Key factors influencing travel: safety, cost, convenience, weather and more
• Visitor perception of Ho Chi Minh City: brand recognition, destination appeal, traveler intent and timing
• Strategic implications: opportunities and insights for tourism stakeholders, DMOs and travel industry partners

The Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center (HTPC), under the Department of Tourism, in strategic partnership with The Outbox Company, proudly announces the launch of the HCMC Global Traveler Barometer (HCMC GTB). This groundbreaking initiative applies advanced travel market data technology to forecast and monitor key international visitor markets for Vietnam. It marks a major leap in leveraging traveler data to enhance destination marketing and solidifies Ho Chi Minh City as the first locality in Vietnam to develop a dedicated system for tracking and forecasting its target markets.

Data-Powered Strategy for Sustainable Growth

The primary aim of this collaboration is to optimize Ho Chi Minh City’s tourism marketing and promotion activities, while fostering sustainable growth for the destination on a data-driven foundation. The HCMC GTB focuses on forecasting travel demand and readiness from top international markets. In addition, the system will provide regular updates on traveler behavior and preferences, and objectively measure Ho Chi Minh City’s destination image in the eyes of international visitors.

This crucial data resource will play a pivotal role in guiding strategic decisions, improving competitiveness, and reinforcing Ho Chi Minh City’s position as a leading, innovative tourism hub in Vietnam.

HCMC GTB 2025: A Comprehensive Traveler Intelligence Platform

Designed as a comprehensive, annual traveler intelligence system for the city’s tourism industry, HCMC GTB will initially track data from 13 top visitor markets, including Korea, Japan, Australia, China, Europe, the US-Canada, and Southeast Asia. This advanced platform equips the city’s tourism authorities and businesses with deep insights into target markets, including:

• Forecasting demand and travel intentions to Ho Chi Minh City.
• Monitoring shifts in travel behavior.
• Measuring and comparing destination brand image and marketing performance against regional competitors.

Insights are gathered through surveys of target travelers at the pre-trip stage and presented via concrete performance indicators. These are analyzed with advanced data analytics models and updated biannually. This approach enhances the city’s ability to understand and forecast global tourism trends, enabling effective and strategic tourism development.

Voices from the Partnership

Ms. Nguyen Cam Tu, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center, stated: “Digital transformation through data application is a crucial step, especially in today’s fast-changing market. Pioneering the implementation of an international traveler tracking and forecasting system reaffirms Ho Chi Minh City’s position post-integration and reflects our commitment to continuous innovation in tourism management and development. We believe that our partnership with The Outbox Company will help strengthen our competitiveness and elevate our destination image in the region.”

Mr. Dang Manh Phuoc, CEO of The Outbox Company, added: “We are honored to be selected as HTPC’s strategic partner in implementing the HCMC Global Traveler Barometer. With our expertise in market research and tourism data analytics across Asia, we are committed to delivering a successful project that boosts the city’s competitiveness. This project also reinforces The Outbox Company’s mission as a pioneering tourism data startup in Asia, working alongside destinations and tourism authorities in Vietnam to integrate market research and traveler data into tourism operations and marketing.”

About the Partners

Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center (HTPC) is a unit under the Department of Tourism of Ho Chi Minh City. It leads the implementation of tourism promotion and marketing activities, contributing to positioning the city’s tourism brand globally.

The Outbox Company is a leading market research and traveler analytics company in Vietnam, operating across Asia in the hospitality and tourism sectors. With deep understanding of regional travelers, Outbox provides comprehensive and customized data solutions to help destinations and tourism businesses effectively connect with their target audiences. As a trusted partner, Outbox supports digital transformation journeys towards a smarter future for Asian tourism.

For more information:

• Visit Ho Chi Minh City Tourism: https://www.visithcmc.vn
• Visit The Outbox Company: https://the-outbox.com